Volume V – The First Bloom

Chapter One: The Petalwind Ceremony

Part Eight

Date: Maelis 24, Year 204 PCR

Location: Cradle of Aegir – Lower Resonance Grounds

Time: Early Morning

The wind sounded different on the 24th.

It no longer howled through the crags. It breathed.

Slow. Rhythmic. Measured like a giant sleeping just beneath the cliffs.

Zephryn awoke before the others—not because of a dream or noise. He simply felt the glyph humming under his skin, slow and constant, like it was syncing with something buried beneath the stone.

He sat up and watched the light crawl across the cracked ceiling.

The Veilmark on his arm was still dark. But the air around it felt heavier.

By the time they reached the training grounds, Buta was already waiting.

No weapon. No scrolls. No orders.

Just him, standing barefoot in the middle of the lower field where glyph-carved stones floated slightly above the moss—fragments of the Resonance Grounds built into the stronghold's foundation.

Kaelen rubbed his shoulder, stretching. "What's the deal?"

Buta didn't answer.

He pointed at the stones. "Stand on one. Don't move."

They obeyed.

One by one, each member of Legato stepped onto a hovering glyph slab—barely large enough to hold their stance.

Then Buta spoke.

"Essence isn't trained. It's revealed."

"Today, you don't move.

Today, you remember."

The field grew silent.

Then, the glyphs beneath their feet lit up.

Not violently—softly, like breath warming glass.

Each platform glowed a different color, reacting to something buried in the core of each student.

Kaelen's flared red-orange, flickering like flame pressed into bone.

Yolti's rippled blue-silver, pulsing like a heartbeat underwater.

Selka's froze white, sharp and quiet, steam rising from its edge.

Zephryn's… did nothing.

No color. No sound.

Just a low hum that didn't come from the platform—but the air itself.

Kaelen cursed. "I don't feel anything."

"Because you're waiting to be told who you are," Buta snapped. "Essence doesn't wait."

Yolti blinked. "Mine's vibrating. Is that… normal?"

Selka remained still, her eyes narrowed.

Zephryn looked at his feet. Still nothing.

But then—he blinked.

The grass beside his platform shifted.

A shadow passed through it. No body. No sound. Just a curved distortion, like heat or memory bending space.

He turned to Buta. "What was that?"

"Essence. It's finding you."

Buta walked between them again.

"Every Resonant's essence forms around three truths:

Element. Song. Animal."

"The element is your resonance.

The song is your frequency.

The animal… is your truth."

He stopped beside Selka. Her platform hissed with cold.

"Some truths sleep."

He moved to Yolti.

"Some flow."

To Kaelen.

"Some burn until nothing's left."

Then he looked at Zephryn again.

"And some… remember."

The ground shifted.

Suddenly, Zephryn's platform jerked downward, dropping six inches as if the stone had flinched. His pulse spiked. He felt it again:

That low, coiling hum beneath the glyph.

It wasn't reacting to his thoughts. It was reacting to his past.

Selka turned toward him. "Zephryn…"

"I didn't do anything," he muttered. "It's like… it's looking for something."

Then the first resonance cracked.

Kaelen's glyph lit bright red, and a flame burst from its edges—his body seizing as heat whipped around him in a sharp, chaotic spiral.

He screamed and dropped to one knee.

A deep growl echoed from the glyph stone.

Not his voice. Not a beast.

But something beneath him—a vibration in the glyph that took shape only in feeling.

It sounded like a lion's roar underwater.

Kaelen gasped. "Did you hear that?!"

Buta didn't answer.

He watched. He waited.

Selka's platform suddenly iced over. Not sharp like before—steady. Measured.

A soft pad of frost slid across her boots. Her breath crystallized.

Then… came the sound of paws.

Not near her. Not around her.

Inside her.

A white wolf. No image. No roar.

Just breath. Cold. Watchful. Still.

Yolti gasped as her own glyph began to swirl, the lines of her platform flowing in circular rhythm.

"Something's swimming under mine," she whispered.

A quiet trill echoed from her stone—like a songbird submerged beneath a tide.

Zephryn felt nothing.

No flame. No ice. No beast.

But when he looked down again, he saw it—

A symbol burned into the grass beneath his glyph, not part of the platform.

∞

Still. Silent.

Then it rotated—not in motion, but in memory.

And he heard the whisper again.

"He remembers…"

He fell to one knee.

And the glyph—finally—lit blue.

Not fire-blue. Not water-blue.

Memory blue.

Buta raised a hand. All the platforms went dark.

"Enough."

Everyone collapsed to the grass, drenched in sweat or trembling.

Kaelen cursed again. "What… was that?"

Buta answered only once.

"That… was your first voice."

Then he turned to Zephryn.

"But yours is singing a second."